Lake Dümmer, September 5-9

The German championships were held from 5th to 8th September on lake Dümmer in the north west of Germany.

43 sailors competed, including Alistair Deaves from England, who was on a European sailing tour since Kiel Week, and Rob Hengst from New Zealand, who was in Europe since the 1995 Worlds.

Lake Dümmer is a shallow (1m, sometimes less) lake around 3km long and 2km wide. The regatta was held in light to mid winds from northern directions which have been very shifty. The course was triangle-saussage-triangle. All six races were won by different sailors and all, except one, by a small margin.

The hosting Sailing Club Clarholz organised good social events, like free beer during protest time at the boat park, special prices after each day and meals in the evenings. The organisers also didn’t mind that many of us slept on the first floor of the clubhouse and didn’t charge for it. It was a very friendly event with fair sailing (no protests made or needed) in very difficult conditions.

Thursday September 5th
Two races scheduled. Light north easterly winds shifting left to north-west, sometimes just hiking conditions.

First race
After a shift to the left just between the first generall recall and the (black flag) start, most of the fleet went left. Just some hundred meters before the windward mark, a gust from 30 degrees to the right saw Peter Scheuerl first, he continued to lead the fleet at all marks, followed by Rainer Rehbehn, Sönke Behrens, Torsten Teutloff and Rüdiger Prinz. At the last beat Peter found a wind hole and the others knew where not to go.

Winner: Sönke Behrens, second Rainer Rehbehn followed by Torsten Teutloff.

Second race
North westerly wind up to 4 Bft. Left side of the beat was favoured, but sometimes the right corner was also good.

Karsten Hitz lead the fleet for the first half, only to be caught by Gunter Peters on the third beat. In the building breeze they managed to build a gap to the rest of the fleet. Lucky there was no on the water Jury. Isabell Reppert, who was there to take photos for an OK-portrait in the yachting press, told us in the evening that it was not possible to take photos on the run because the boats were rolling too much…

Winner: Gunter Peters, Karsten Hitz and Jörn Wille.

Friday, September 6th
Again shifty conditions but more wind.

Third race
Rainer “I had a dream of winning” Rehbehn lead the fleet for the whole race but his traveller sheet broke on the last beat, Jörn Wille overtook him during the repair.

Winner: Jörn Wille, Rainer Rehbehn and Ingo Ballerstein.

Fourth race
The breeze builded up to 5 Bft in some gusts. While in the race before the left corner was in favour, on the starting beat in nearly no wind the right was favoured as the wind built up there first with a 50 degree shift wich came back left too late for most on the left.

Kai “Aggi” Witt was first with a small margin at the first mark, but in the first gust of the building breeze he managed to start planing away with most of the fleet still beating. As most of the sailors in front of the fleet at the first mark were light-weather experts, a lot of places changed during the race.

Winner: Kai “Aggi” Witt, Karsten Hitz and Rüdiger Prinz.

Saturday September 7
Light winds with gusts coming from the right or left together with shifts up to 60 degrees.

Rüdiger Prinz lead the fleet together with Ralf “Ossi” Tietje, Rainer Rehbehn and Jörn Wille. It became clear that the championship would be won by either Jörn “Mr. High-Tech” Wille or Rüdiger “lake runner” Prinz.

Winner: Rüdiger Prinz, Ralf “Ossi” Tietje and Rainer Rehbehn.

After this race Rüdiger and Jörn had -without discard- the same points, Rübe got a sixth to discard and Jörn a 10th. Noone else could win.

Sunday September 8
Light to mid north-westerly winds, shifty, as the days before.

Just from the five minutes gun on, Jörn and Rübe started a match-race. Ingo Ballerstein lead the whole race with Alistair Deaves and Manuel Finder just behind at the last mark. Rüdiger Prinz, around 15 at the first mark, with Jörn Wille just behind, managed to be 7th at the last mark followed by Jörn Wille. If Jörn could get in front of Rübe and in the top 5 he would have won.

On the last beat, Ingo paid attention only to the boats just behind him, as there was a gap of 100 meters to Rainer Rehbehn and Peter Scheuerl. These saw a gust coming from the right with a 50 degree shift and went about 200 meters right. Rübe stayed between Jörn and the finish all the beat. Due to the big shift “clever old man” Rainer and Peter managed to overtake the first boats and Peter was a bit faster on the last meters to get the gun.

Winner: Peter Scheuerl, Rainer Rehbehn and Ingo “I came to Win” Ballerstein. The 5th place of Rüdiger Prinz was enough to be champion.

Pl Name Sailno R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 Pts-1
1 Rüdiger Prinz GER 634 4 6 4 3 1 5 16.75
2 Jörn Wille GER 699 10 3 1 4 4 7 18.75
3 Rainer Rehbehn GER 595 2 15 2 11 3 2 20
4 Ingo Ballerstein GER 607 9 8 3 12 7 3 30
5 Karsten Hitz GER 672 7 2 11 2 12 DNS 34
6 Peter Scheuerl GER 618 5 9 12 9 17 1 35.75
7 Ralf Mackmann GER 642 6 32 15 6 9 12 48
8 Sönke Behrens GER 449 1 20 8 5 23 15 48.75
9 Gunter Peters GER 674 18 1 5 14 11 18 48.75
10 Ralf Tietje GER 576 26 7 7 17 2 16 49
11 Harald Kölsch GER 606 19 4 9 15 10 13 51
12 Thorsten Schmidt GER 707 14 13 13 10 28 6 56
13 Kai Witt GER 686 15 5 22 1 25 14 56.75
14 Jörg Sylvester GER 679 8 17 17 7 14 27 63
15 Thorsten Teutloff GER 703 3 16 28 13 26 10 68
16 Volkmar Kiene GER 225 28 19 16 23 5 11 74
17 Uwe Boehm GER 599 30 10 14 16 6 DNS 76
18 Christian Senst GER 570 13 27 21 26 8 9 77
19 Alistair Deaves GBR 2010 16 21 19 22 19 4 79
20 Christian Hartmann GER 622 20 22 6 21 30 22 91
21 Sven Wurmdobler GER 649 23 11 20 8 29 DNS 91
22 Gerd Breitbart GER 662 29 14 26 24 16 17 97
23 Dirk Dame GER 688 21 18 18 20 34 20 97
24 Marina Dellas (F GER 680 12 25 24 27 37 21 109
25 Jörn Richter GER 666 25 26 10 25 24 DNF 110
26 Dirk Gericke GER 695 17 12 33 19 32 37 113
27 Rainer Schroeter GER 633 11 29 29 32 13 32 114
28 Manuel Finder GER 579 34 31 30 28 22 8 119
29 Rob Hengst NZL 473 35 23 23 36 20 25 126
30 Dieter Senst GER 577 27 28 38 29 27 19 130
31 Matthias Müller GER 628 32 39 34 18 21 30 135
32 Jan Dissel GER 690 24 24 DNS DNS 18 24 136
33 Kirstin Brand GER 637 31 37 27 31 15 DNF 141
34 Thomas Neveling GER 664 22 35 37 33 31 26 147
35 Burkhard Rössau GER 635 37 33 25 30 38 31 156
36 Norbert Petrausch GER 630 33 34 35 34 33 35 169
37 Birke Taufenbach GER 670 40 40 32 38 40 23 173
38 Rolf Münch GER 605 39 36 39 37 36 28 176
39 Hendrik Baumgart GER 623 38 38 40 40 42 29 185
40 Axel Reuter GER 654 36 42 41 39 35 34 185
41 Jens Bock GER 589 41 43 36 35 39 36 187
42 Nis Welm GER 678 DNS 30 31 DNF DNS DNS 195
43 Juliane Hofmann GER 542 42 41 42 41 41 33 198